söndag 25 juli 2010

Frihetliga sagohjältar: Berlin Batman

Johan Ingerös serie om frihetliga sagohjältar är som tidigare nämnts alldeles för bra för att dö ut, så ett enkelt om än måhända obskyrt inslag på temat: Vad får man om man korsar Batman med världens bästa stad? Jo, Berlin Batman - från Wikipedia:

In Berlin, Germany in the year 1938, wealthy socialite Baruch Wane learns from his friend komissar Garten that the police have confiscated the library, works, and notes of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, due to his stance against the Nazi Party policy of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Unbeknownst to Garten, Baruch is actually the mysterious Batman who has been terrorizing the wealthy members of the Nazi Party.

Years ago, when Baruch was still a child, he watched his Jewish parents get beaten to death by an anti-semitic mob. From that point on, Baruch swore that he would avenge their deaths and spend the rest of his life on a war against all criminals and injustice. As he grew up, he developed his mind and his body, and upon inheriting his parents wealth and estate, he became inspired by a bat which flew into his home and decided to use this symbol as a means to frighten criminals.

The following night of his visit with Garten, Baruch suits up and heads down to the trainyard in order to steal back Mises's works. He tries to stop the train, but when Garten's men surround him, he instead blows up the train so that way Mises's works and ideals do not fall into the wrong hands.

The following is an excerpt from the unpublished memoirs of Baruch's assistant, Robin.
"...Ludwig Von Mises escaped to the United States when the Nazis ransacked his apartment in 1938. It was his landlady, a friend of his mother's, who told the authorities Von Mises was working on a new book which challenged Nazi social and economic policies. They slowed him down, but they couldn't stop him. He continued work on a book which was eventually published in '49, called 'Human Action', now considered one of the great libertarian works of our times. Von Mises anti-authoritarian ideas were first a threat to the Nazis, then the Soviets, and to all increasingly regulatory governments in our own times. He was against socialism in all its many forms. He was an advocate of individual liberty, free speech, and free thinking... and so, should I add, the Berlin Batman. The Batman, as we all know, got better at what he does, and the legends of his exploits continued to grow to this day.

Tidigare inlägg på temat:
- Frihetliga sagohjältar: Ett litet djur åt Pelle

Teknisk utveckling, en punktstudie: robotben

Det är en ren ynnest att få leva i dagens samhälle, där den tekniska utvecklingen gör att saker man bara kunde drömma om för något decennium sedan är ren vardagsmat, och där utvecklingstakten bara accelererar.

Ibland kan det vara nyttigt att ta ner det på individnivå, som exempelvis när ett cochleaimplantat gör att åtta månader gamle Jonathan för första gången får höra sin mammas röst:

(Direktlänk)

Ett annat exempel på vad teknisk utveckling innebär -från BBC:

Inventors in New Zealand have come up with what they say is a unique device which allows paraplegic people to walk again.

The first pair of the new bionic legs has given fresh hope to Hayden Allen who had been told he would never walk again following a motor-cycle accident.

Film finns i BBC-artikeln, och även på Youtube:

(Direktlänk)

Benen är självklart klumpiga och dyra, men på den fronten kan de nog lämpligast jämföras med tidiga datorer.

Och för den misantrope - inte bara människor gynnas av uppfinningen i fråga - återigen från BBC:

A cat that had its back feet severed by a combine harvester has been given two prosthetic limbs in a pioneering operation by a UK vet.

Film finns återigen i BBC-artikeln, och på Youtube:

(Direktlänk)

Tidigare inlägg på benprotestemat:
- Då och nu
- Oscar Pistorius, tecken i tiden

Unintended consequences

Att ett förslag ger oönskade effekter som idémakaren inte räknade med är att klassa som standard, vilket drabbat mången välmenande centralstyrare. Exemplen är oändliga och ofta självklara, såsom att hjälmtvång minskar antalet cyklister, skrämselpropaganda flyttar folk till farligare aktiviteter, höjda minimilöner ökar arbetslösheten, pristak leder till minskat utbud, eller att skyddsmekanismer för dem som redan är inne i systemet leder till minskad rörlighet. Svarta marknader är också legio i sammanhanget.

Därför är det viktigt att gå till roten med vad det egentliga problemet är - det spelar ingen roll hur många mafiosos staten fängslar/avlivar; så länge systemfel gör att vinningarna inom området är tillräckligt stora kommer efterfrågan på sådana arbetstillfällen vara närmast oändlig - som i Red Alert - från Wikipedia:

Starting off in 1946, at the Trinity site in New Mexico, the opening to Red Alert shows Albert Einstein as he is preparing to travel backwards through space and time. After his experimental "Chronosphere" device is activated, he finds himself in Landsberg, Germany, in the year 1924, where he meets a young Adolf Hitler just after the latter's release from Landsberg Prison. Following a brief conversation between the two, Einstein shakes Hitler's hand, and this somehow eliminates Hitler's existence from time and returns Einstein to his point of origin.

With the threat of Nazi Germany having been successfully removed from history, the Soviet Union began to grow increasingly powerful under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Had Adolf Hitler risen to power, Nazi Germany would have emerged as a force standing in the way of Stalin's own ambitions of conquest. Instead, left unweakened, the USSR proceeds by seizing lands from China and then begins invading Eastern Europe, in order to achieve Joseph Stalin's vision of a Soviet Union stretching across the entire Eurasian landmass.


Förändringar måste helt enkelt ske underifrån, så mitt tips till Einstein hade nog varit att istället söka öppna maximalt antal ögon för frihetliga reformer, så att terrortendenser kvävs långt innan de hunnit bli ohanterliga.

Det fantastiska Red Alert-introt:

(Direktlänk)

torsdag 1 juli 2010

Teori, praktik, humor 6

Teori, återigen:

Incentives matter more than intentions.

Praktik, från John Stossel:

In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, almost half of all burglaries occur when residents are home. But in the United States, where many households contain guns, only 13 percent of burglaries happen when someone is at home.

Humor, ur Simpsons-avsnittet King-Size Homer - från snpp.com:

Homer: D'oh! Hey, where's Charlie? How'd he get out of this?
Carl: Uh, he's at home on disability.
Lenny: Yeah, he got injured on the job and they sent him home with pay.
[scoffs] It's like a lottery that awards stupidity.
Homer: Stupidity, eh?

Homer wanders around, muttering "Must hurt self, must hurt self, must
hurt self..."


Tidigare inlägg på temat: